Feb. 16
VIRGINIA----impending execution
State set to execute Bell in 3 days
Edward Nathaniel Bell on Thursday is scheduled to become the 103rd person
executed in Virginia since the reinstitution of the death penalty in 1976.
Sentenced to die in 2001 for the Oct. 29, 1999, fatal shooting of
32-year-old Winchester Police Sgt. Ricky Timbrook, Bell has appealed his
sentence repeatedly, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each appeal
has been denied.
If Gov. Timothy M. Kaine rejects the 44-year-old's request for clemency,
the state at 9 p.m. Thursday will carry out the sentence handed down
nearly 8 years ago.
Since Kaine's election in 2005, 8 prisoners have been executed in
Virginia, according to the Department of Corrections. Kaine has not
commuted the sentences of any death row inmates, though he personally
doesnt believe in the death penalty.
Bell had been scheduled to be executed on April 8, 2008, but Kaine, a
Democrat, instituted a moratorium for 2 weeks in the early part of the
month while the U.S. Supreme Court debated the constitutionality of lethal
injection.
In many other states, Bells route to the death chamber could have been far
more circuitous. But Virginia is one of the most active death-penalty
states in the nation, executing a greater number of condemned inmates more
quickly than just about any other state.
Only Texas executes more inmates.
Countdown to Bell's execution
Edward Nathaniel Bell is set to face lethal injection Thursday at
Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. Bell was convicted in the 1999
murder of Winchester Police Sgt. Ricky L. Timbrook and was sentenced to
die May 30, 2001, by 26th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Dennis L. Hupp.
Four previous execution dates have passed for Bell, who on Thursday will
have spent 7 years, 8 months, and 21 days on death row.
Texas has conducted 430 executions since 1977, dwarfing Virginia's 102 and
3rd-place Oklahoma's 89.
The next biggest death penalty state is Florida, with 66 executions.
Arizona and Ohio are the only states outside the South to execute more
than 20 people over the last 30 years. Maryland has executed only 5 people
in that time.
Despite Virginia's high frequency of executions, the average wait on death
row for someone sentenced to die is still 7 years. Bell has been on death
row nearly 8 years.
When Bell was sentenced in 2001, the director of Winchester's Victim
Witness Program cautioned Timbrooks family that the wait was just
beginning.
"I told them we have a long way to go, we knew how long it takes," said
Jim Pearce.
Bell's execution will take place at Greensville Correctional Center in
Jarratt near North Carolina border.
Virginia, however, is one of the fastest states to execute. The average
wait in Texas is 9 years.
Virginia uses 2 methods of execution, lethal injection and the electric
chair. Since lethal injection became an option in 1995, inmates have been
allowed to choose.
Those who don't choose receive lethal injection. Since 1976, there have
been 74 lethal injections and 28 electrocutions. The last electrocution
was performed in 2006.
Opponents of the death penalty say Virginia's efficiency at executing
inmates is because of a flawed appeals process slanted against the
convicted.
"The process is very bad ... if you actually get sentenced to death, its
very difficult to change that sentence regardless of the evidence," said
Beth Panilaitis, executive director of the Charlottesville-based
Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
Some of that difficulty comes from restrictions to the evidence that can
be introduced on appeal, such as a rule barring lawyers from raising
objections on appeal if they were not brought up during the original
trial.
However, death penalty supporters such as 2005 Republican gubnatorial
candidate Jerry Kilgore, counter that such rules deter "frivolous
litigation" that would otherwise tie up the courts.
Panilaitis says the system doesn't give the condemned enough time to
adequately appeal their convictions.
"The time frame from conviction to execution is too short ... there can be
many mitigating factors to receiving a death sentence," Panilaitis said.
Panilaitis and other death penalty opponents maintain that there are other
factors besides the crimes committed that contribute to who gets a death
sentence and who doesn't.
For example, virtually all of those who receive death sentences in
Virginia are indigent, and have to rely on appointed counsel.
"People who can pay their lawyer rarely get the death penalty," said
Panilaitis.
She said that another contributing factor is race.
However, a 2002 review of Virginia's death penalty process conducted by a
bipartisan committee of state senators and delegates concluded that race
doesnt influence who gets the death penalty nearly as much as location.
The study found that prosecutors in high density areas (such as Arlington
and Fairfax counties and Newport News) were 200 % less likely than other
prosecutors to seek the death penalty.
Under the criteria used in the study, Winchester is a low to medium
density area.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Labor Statistics,
nationwide death penalty rates are declining.
However, Virginia's General Assembly is considering legislation to expand
the scope of crimes for which perpetrators can receive the death penalty.
Generally, a death sentence is reserved for crimes that involve killing
more than one person, killing children, killing someone while committing
another felony, or killing a law enforcement official.
Under the proposed legislation, accomplices to a capital crime could also
receive the death penalty.
"Now we're going to kill getaway drivers?" Panilaitis asked.
Of Virginia's 102 executions since 1976, only 1 of the condemned has been
from the Winchester area. Front Royal resident Arthur Ray Jenkins III was
executed in 1999 for the murder of his uncle and another man.
(source: Winchester Star)
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